


The Winchester-Novak Mess (or, why you really shouldn't stalk your friends)

by Emilill



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Background Relationships, Castiel and Dean Winchester are Claire Novak's Parents, Finale? What Finale?, Friendship, Misunderstandings, Multi, POV Outsider, Post-Canon, Weddings, except the finale never happened because yeah. it didn't, stalking but not really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-18 18:20:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29494224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emilill/pseuds/Emilill
Summary: “Nah,” Claire says nonchalantly, taking a sip of her beer, “my kinda-dad and his boyfriend are getting married this Sunday, and I should probably be there cause they’re both sort of my dads and stuff.”Willow honestly doesn’t know what she had been expecting, but this was definitely wasn’t it. But, like the socially awkward bisexual she is, she just says “Okay, cool!” and doesn’t ask any more questions.Alternatively, there's a reason why you should just ask your friend about their weird family, not conduct your own private investigation. Especially when it involves the internet.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester, background Kaia Nieves/Claire Novak - Relationship
Comments: 6
Kudos: 153





	The Winchester-Novak Mess (or, why you really shouldn't stalk your friends)

**Author's Note:**

> Me? Actually posting a fic on my main account? Freaking miracle. I've been wanting to write an outsider POV fic for I while because I absolutely adore them, and I finally got an actual good idea for one! Thank Sunday's Deancas wedding for it!
> 
> Rated T just cause Dean's a knives first, questions later type of person.

So, Willow's got this friend. Well, she considers her a friend, but she doesn't actually know that much about her besides her name and that she travels around a lot. But she follows her on Instagram, so that's something at least. Claire is one of the few actually interesting people in Sioux Falls, though, so she tries to hang out with her whenever she can. 

They're sitting in a bar, having drinks together when the whole “Novak-Winchester Mess”, as Willow likes to call it, starts.

“You free this weekend? They're playing that new horror movie; thought we could check it out.” It's not an invitation to a date, not that Willow wouldn’t like to do that, but Claire already has a girlfriend she's ridiculously in love with.

“Nah,” Claire says nonchalantly, taking a sip of her beer, “my kinda-dad and his boyfriend are getting married this Sunday, and I should probably be there cause they’re both sort of my dads and stuff.”

Willow honestly doesn’t know what she had been expecting, but this was definitely wasn’t it. But, like the socially awkward bisexual she is, she just says “Okay, cool!” and doesn’t ask any more questions.

When she gets home, she falls face-down on her bed and really regrets not asking Claire to elaborate.

She's half-tempted to ask Claire's sisters? – Adoptive family? Friends? Who even knows at this point? – what exactly she meant, but, well, they aren’t exactly approachable. You don’t exactly ask two sheriffs for their life story, after all, and Patience sometimes just stares off into the distance so that’s not exactly a great sign. Then there's Kaia, who Willow honestly finds a little intimidating. Alex seems like the most sensible choice of the group, but she's a nurse, she has more important business to attend to than answering strangers' questions.

She almost (almost) forgets about the whole thing until Claire posts a photo to her account Sunday evening. It's of her in a suit, arm slung around Kaia’s shoulders, two guys seemingly in their 40’s standing next to them. The caption is “These two finally got their shit together and got hitched. Congrats, dads, you may be old men, but you two still make a nice couple I guess.”. The guy with the intense, sky blue eyes has a soft smile on his face, meanwhile the green-eyed man with the boy band haircut is grinning broadly. 

Willow has never seen either of them. But something in the background catches her eye. A large banner declaring “Congratulations Castiel and Dean Winchester!”. Now that's something she can go off of.

But it doesn’t get her very far, not at first at least. Looking up Dean Winchester only gets her to some article about a serial killer with the same name who died over a decade ago. Nothing even shows up for Castiel Winchester. Must have been the one who took up his husband's name. But that gets her thinking. Claire did say one of them was her “kinda-dad”, whatever that means, so maybe Castiel Novak will get her somewhere. 

She's almost ready to give up when she spots something interesting. There doesn’t seem to be a Castiel Novak, but Willow does spot Claire's name in an old blog entry. “The mysterious disappearance of James ‘Jimmy’ Novak” the title says. The description mentions a wife, Amelia, and a daughter, Claire. She clicks on it out of curiosity and her jaw drops. Staring back at her is the blue-eyed man from the picture with a blonde woman and a girl who suspiciously looks like a younger Claire by his side. Surprise has her bumping her hand into her mouse which closes the window. This just got a whole lot more interesting.

* * *

She's pretty sure she's got it figured out. Jimmy Novak realized that he's gay, ran away from, (or got kicked out by,) his wife. He changed his name to something weird and obscure so nobody would find him. But Claire, realizing she was in the same situation, followed his example and found him. It seems like a plausible theory except for a few holes. Like why Claire calls Castiel her kinda-dad.

Willow decides to ask her the next time they meet. They're heading to a showing of that lame, new horror movie when she brings it up as casually as she can.

“So, why did you call that guy whose wedding you went to your kinda-dad?” Claire seems a bit thrown off, but she answers anyway.

“Oh, well... That's a little complicated. He's not my actual dad, he's more like an uncle, really. My dad passed away a long time ago.” And with that she throws Willow’s whole investigation off the tracks.

“I’m- I'm sorry for bringing it up,” she sputters. Claire shrugs and looks down.

“You didn’t know, it's... Whatever. You know this movie's gonna suck, right?” And that's that.

Willow supposes Jimmy could have had a twin, but too many things seem off here. She really wishes she'd read through that blog post. So, she calls Darius.

Everyone's got that one weird friend who talks about conspiracy theories and paranormal stuff all the time. Darius is that friend. He's always talking about ghosts and demons and that witch he killed the other week (yeah, right), and he has salt lines on the windowsills and weird symbols on his walls. And he overshares. He overshares a _lot._ But there's no one else like him in Sioux Falls and Willow appreciates that a lot. And he's an expert on weird things.

As soon as the guys’ names leave her mouth, she hears him gasp.

“Winchester?! You mean Sam and Dean Winchester??” Willow sighs.

“No, dude, I just said Castiel and Dean Winchester.” Darius gasps dramatically again after hearing the names.

“Willow, the Winchesters are basically celebrities! How in the world do you not know about them?” Willow groans.

“Darius, you know I'm not into all that paranormal stuff,” she says exasperatedly.

“It's supernatural, not paranormal, how many times do I have to tell you? And it’s the Winchesters! And did you say Castiel? I met the three of them once when I was dealing with that witch who kept making people's eyes pot out of their heads, did you know she...”

“Okay, okay, that's enough. So, you know what their deal is?” Darius scoffs.

“Well duh. Some of it at least. They’re the best in the field, they've saved the world like. A lot.” Great, yeah. That's _very_ useful for her investigation.

“In the field. Right. The field of killing witches?” Willow rolls her eyes. She feels a bit bad for not taking the guy seriously, but some of the stuff he says is just plain ridiculous.

“Among other things. I specialize in witches, they don’t.”

“Sure. Do you know anything about Castiel, though?” she asks. Darius hums.

“Not much, he's pretty mysterious. I know he's an angel, and that he like those two enough to help them out. No idea why a being that powerful would bother with us humans, but I guess the Winchesters are considered the best for a reason. That's it, really, you know I'd tell you more if I could, that unbreakable truth spell that witch cast on me back in ’09 still doesn’t allow me to lie.” The truth spell. Right.

“That’s okay, thanks for the help, Darius! Bye!” She puts the phone down before he can reply. So that was useless.

* * *

This is a very bad and very very stupid idea, Willow's aware of that. But sometimes her curiosity just gets the better of her. This is just about the most interesting thing that's happened to her in years. So yes, maybe stalking (not stalking! Just observing) your friend's house is dumb and kind of creepy, but can you blame her for looking for a little excitement? 

She spends most of her free time wandering around the neighborhood, looking for anything that seems out-of-place. She finally finds it when one afternoon, two weeks after the mysterious wedding, a huge, loud, black muscle car pulls up to Claire's family’s place. She tries her hardest not to stare as four guys step out of it. Two of them she recognizes as the guys from Claire's picture, the other two she's never seen before. One of them is an absolute giant of a man with shoulder-length brown hair, and the other is... She wants to say a kid but there’s a strange aura of timelessness to him, almost like he could be either eighteen, thirty, or a millennium old. The weird ensemble walks into a house and they don’t come back out for a while.

By the time someone emerges, the sun has gone down. It's the guy with the boy band haircut and green eyes, if Willow remembers correctly. Dean Winchester, if her theories so far have been mostly correct. He looks around before heading down some random direction. Against her better judgment, Willow follows him.

When he turns a corner and Willow goes after him, he's gone. She rubs her eyes to make sure she’s seeing things right. She's about to turn back when she's slammed into the fence next to her and the air is knocked out of her lungs. She finds herself face-to-face with Dean Winchester himself, who is holding a knife to her throat.

“I'mnotdoinganythingIswear!” she gasps out. The man's green eyes are glaring daggers at her.

“Why were you standing outside Jody's house for hours? And why were you following me?” His voice is deeper than Willow expects it.

“I'm not some psycho murderer, I swear! I'm a friend of Claire's and– and she mentioned some stuff about her ‘sort of dads' and their wedding and I just got curious! I don’t wanna hurt anyone, I promise! Can you, um, put the knife away, please?” Her voice is shaking with nerves. He sighs and takes the blade away from her neck.

“Well, just ask her next time, ‘kay? And don’t go ‘round stalking strangers. Got it?” He doesn’t sound angry, just annoyed, and Willow’s got to admit he has a point. She nods.

“Got it. And um, could you just... Not mention this to Claire? I just wanted to know more about her cause she's my friend and all, but she's barely told me anything besides her name. And I really don’t want this incident to damage our friendship., she's one of the coolest people I hang out with.” Willow thinks she might have hit her head because she swears she sees the guy subtly smirk at that.

“Alright, kid. I don’t think anyone saw you besides me, anyway. But if you do it again, I won't be this nice, okay?” She gulps and nods. The guy seems satisfied with that, so the turns and leaves without another word.

* * *

And a few months later, when she finally tells Claire everything, the girl bursts out laughing.

“You dumbass, you could've just asked me!”

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed it!! Kudos and comments very much appreciated!!
> 
> It'd say check out my Tumblr (@drlavenderpepper) but I mostly post about MCR and other bands so unless you're into that I don't really have that much to offer over there lol


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